Trump Is Trying to Distract Us From ... Something

Tuesday morning's dispatches from Camp Runamuck are led by the revelation that the camp's activities director found his telephone again and decided that it's never too early to start Making America Hate Again.

El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago chimed in on the electric Twitter machine that it is his considered (if utterly) manic opinion that people who burn the American flag should be put in the hoosegow and/or stripped of their American citizenship. (In the Beyond, Clement Vallandigham perks up on his stool at the bar.) Unlike many of the president-elect's public episodes, this one seemed attached to no real developments in the news, unless he's been following the events at Hampshire College more closely than would seem wise for a guy who can't decide on a Secretary of State.

Naturally, there was a loud (and largely bipartisan) outcry against this egregious attempt to put more bananas in our burgeoning banana republic. For me, this one came from so far out of the blue that it really did register as his attempt to distract our attention from something else coming down the track, although I shudder to think what that might be. Maybe it's this guy's interview to be Trump's Director of the VA. This is the Reagan-era Watt-Gorsuch strategy on afterburners.

(In 2005, it should be noted, Hillary Rodham Clinton co-sponsored a bill that would have criminalized flag-burning. This, like her vote for the Iraq War, likely was based in a miscalculation of which way the wind would be blowing in 2008, when she planned to run for president the first time. In any case, it wasn't her finest hour.)

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One thing this latest outburst also might be aimed at is drawing our attention away from his nomination of Rep. Tom Price to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price is a fetus-monitor of the first order, and he is one of those meddling Penis-Americans who believe that he and Jesus know what's best for the ladies and their ladyparts medicine. He also would like to burn the Affordable Care Act to the ground and spit on its ashes. Per New York:

Price co-sponsored a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, voted against anti-LGBT discrimination bills, and called President Obama's guidelines allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms they choose "absurd." GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis has already called him "completely unfit" for HHS secretary. His selection should also intensify concerns about abortion rights and birth-control coverage under the Trump administration. Price has a rating of 0 from Planned Parenthood and a rating of 100 from the National Right to Life Committee. In 2007, Price co-sponsored the Right to Life Act, which would have given a "preborn human person" equal protection under the 14th Amendment from the moment of fertilization. Price is opposed to federal requirements that insurers cover contraception at no cost. He famously claimed that there is no woman in the U.S. who can't afford birth control, saying in 2012, "Bring me one. There's not one." The incoming HHS secretary could undo that element of Obamacare immediately by redefining preventive health benefits for women to exclude birth control.

The confirmation hearings are going to be a gas unless, of course, the Democrats completely chicken out, which is always a solid possibility.

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Meanwhile, Willard Romney, his principles and naughty bits once again stowed neatly in a fine leather valise, showed up at HQ again Tuesday morning for what probably will be his last B&D sess…er...with the president-elect on the subject of being Secretary of State. I don't think the president-elect has the stones to withstand the dungbomb that will detonate on the right if he puts Willard in that job. (N. Leroy Gingrich is already orbiting Saturn over the whole idea.) Meanwhile, David Petraeus has his own problems and Rudy Giuliani belongs in a locked ward somewhere. Why Trump hasn't simply settled on bland, uncontroversial Bob Corker for the gig already is beyond me.

While all this intrigue is swirling around the lobby of the Obvious Overcompensation in midtown, obvious anagram Reince Priebus interrupted his search for the perfect leather outfit to explain to the country that, as the future White House chief-of-staff, he will be on board with the new administration's environmental policy of letting the Earth burn. From his appearance on Fox News:

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"As far as this issue on climate change, the only thing he was saying after being asked a few questions about it was, look, he'll have an open mind about it. But he has his default position which, most of it is a bunch of bunk."

In related news, down in Tennessee, the Smoky Mountains are smokier than usual. They're burning down, and taking a chunk of Gatlinburg with them. From The Knoxville News-Sentinel:

"The center of Gatlinburg looks good for now," said Newmansville Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Bobby Balding. "It's the apocalypse on both sides (of downtown)."

And, in the latest development, Elaine Chao, who is related by marriage to Mitch McConnell, is back in government. This time, she's going to be Secretary of Transportation, or so we are informed by Tiger Beat On The Potomac.

Chao, who ran the Labor Department under President George W. Bush, met with the incoming president at Trump Tower last week and discussed labor and transportation policy, Trump's transition team said then… The wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Chao is the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet-level position. She also served as deputy secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush. Chao was also a member of Trump's Asian Pacific American Advisory Council during the campaign.

When she was Secretary of Labor under C-Plus Augustus, Chao was notable in her lack of enthusiasm for the job of keeping workers safe and holding employers liable. The enforcement of mine safety regulations pretty much collapsed, as did the Sago River mine in 2006 and the Crandall Canyon Mine in 2007, killing 15 people. Low-wage workers pretty much were out of luck, too, as the General Accounting Office discovered.

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